Post-Op: 'The Responsive Eye' Fifty Years After

POST OP: ‘THE RESPONSIVE EYE’ FIFTY YEARS AFTER

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

ISBN: 978-0-9907011-1-8 FRONT COVER: Julian Stanczak, TRANSLUCENT ORANGE, 1968-2002, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36” Tadasky, C143, 1965, Acrylic on canvas, 47” x 47”, page 13 TITLE PAGE: John Goodyear, THE LIGHT SOURCE, 1965, Acrylic on plastic with inner lighting, 24” x 24” x 6” Leroy Lamis, CONSTRUCTION #209, 1972, Plexiglass, 12” x 12” x 12” Francis Celentano, ELLIPTICAL KINETIC PAINTING, 1967, Acrylic on masonite with motor, 48” x 48” x 6.5” PAGES 3 & 4: Julian Stanczak, TRESPASS IN THE DARK, 2004, Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 84” Karl Benjamin, #3, 1990, Oil on canvas, 48” x 60” Ed Mieczkowski, BLUE GANTRY, 1986, Acrylic and graphite on paper, 44.5” x 32” Oli Sihvonen, ELEGY (017), 1988, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60” x 68” PAGES 8 & 9 Francis Hewitt, ILLUMINATED DISCS, 1964, Acrylic on canvas, wood stretcher, metal frame, 36” x 36” x 1.75” Thomas Downing, FIZI, ca 1970, Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 30” Alexander Liberman, UNTITLED, ca 1950, Oil on canvas, 18” x 24” Oli Sihvonen, 3 ON GREEN (116), 1963, Oil on canvas, 81” x 17” Ed Mieczkowski, ADELE, 1963, Acrylic on board, 31” x 31” PAGES 28 & 29 Alexander Liberman, IOTA II, 1961, Oil on canvas, 50” x 30.5” Lorser Feitelson, ARCHIMAGE II, 1976, Acrylic on canvas board, 30” x 24” Richard Anuszkiewicz, CROSSROAD REDS, 2000, Enamel on steel, 38” x 38” x .25” Thomas Downing, FIRST SKY, 1983, Acrylic on canvas, 96” x 48” BACK COVER: Karl Benjamin, #3, 1990, Oil on canvas, 48” x 60” Ed Mieczkowski, BLUE GANTRY, 1986, Acrylic and graphite on paper, 44.5” x 32” Hannes Beckmann, NOCTURNAL SPACE, 1973, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 30” Francis Celentano, LE CIRQUE 10, 2004, Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 84”

POST OP: ‘THE RESPONSIVE EYE’ FIFTY YEARS AFTER

CURATED BY DAVID EICHHOLTZ AND PETER FRANK

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

OP SPRINGS ETERNAL: “THE RESPONSIVE EYE” FIFTY YEARS ON

By Peter Frank

Exactly half a century ago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York — the fount of authority for contemporary American art (and, it was supposed in America, for art around the world) — mounted a large survey of art designed to stimulate the eye of the beholder simply and directly, without reliance on extra-visual content. Here, the exhibition proclaimed, was a kind of art, practiced worldwide, that worked upon the conditions of vision itself. The forms it took — patterns, moirés, spirals, targets, contrasting and complementary colors — and the illusory and disorienting effects it conveyed as a result were its raison d’être; it depicted nothing, symbolized nothing, referred to nothing, and suggested nothing, at least any sooner than it acted upon and exploited the peculiarities and limitations of the eye, the brain, and the connection between the two.

“The Responsive Eye” and the kind(s) of art it featured were already popular, and controversial, by the time of the show’s inception, and remained so for the duration of its travel to four other venues in the United States. Dubbed “Op Art” — by both a frenzied mass media tired of Pop Art and a scornful art media tired of the mass media’s invasion of its territory — the art collated in “The Responsive Eye” proved a relatively easy sell to a public wary of (if no longer antagonistic to) new art but always ready for a spectacle. Like most spectacles, the Op Art craze faded fairly quickly, melting into art and cultural history within three years. But what passed for one brief, shining moment as “Op Art” in MoMA and various galleries a short walk away — and in fashion and interior design magazines across the nation — had deep roots in Europe and Latin America, where it was taken quite seriously by intellectuals and academics. And certain of those roots had already been transplanted here. There was more to Op than met the eye.

Outside the United States — indeed, in Buenos Aires and Montréal no less than in Paris, London, or Zagreb — this kind of perceptually based art, devoid of extra-referential content, was regarded as a critical extension of prewar non-objective abstract painting and sculpture. Its employment of a basically geometric formal vocabulary, its preoccupation with design and the effects of color, and its optimistic regard for and exploitation of modern technology all harked back to the research and pedagogy of movements such as De Stijl in Holland and the Bauhaus school in Germany. The post-World War II era saw the re-convening of like-minded art and design schools and movements throughout the continent, especially in reaction to the initial prevalence of a far more expressionistic abstraction. By 1960, just as abstract expressionism was giving way in the U.S. to hard-edge painting, European art informel was also yielding to a much less passion-driven, far more rationally devised abstraction.

Where the new geometric abstraction differed from the old was in its emphasis on scientific rather than aesthetic logic. Geometric abstraction before the War had relied on compositional values, on asymmetric balance and classical poise that allow the eye to travel gracefully and come to rest. The new forms of abstraction — appropriating the restless, dispersed, all-over composition of so many gestural abstract paintings — gave the eye nowhere to alight, but kept it moving, darting, bouncing from element to element. The frailties of human sight constituted the playground for these new geometricists — and provided the opportunity to bring the spectator in as an active, if perhaps reluctant, participant. The viewer, as per Duchamp (whose mid-1930s “Roto-Reliefs” anticipated much Op Art), “completed the work of art” — almost against his or her will.

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American Op Art hijacked viewers’ eyes no less than did Op Art from Italy or Brazil. But, as opposed to the quasi-scientific procedures of so many international artists, American Op was normally produced through trial and error, by artists working in isolation from one another. (Indeed, while the international perceptual-art scene produced any number of collaborative teams, only one, the Cleveland-based Anonima Group, was active in the U.S.) As well, American Op artists tended to rely more on painting media than did their compeers in their investigations into optical activation and slippage. “The Responsive Eye” notably included a number of New York painters who had been identified as “post-painterly abstractionists,” inheritors of the abstract expressionist aesthetic who nevertheless rejected its ethos for a far cooler spirit. (Similarly, the show featured several California artists who soon after were given the labels “finish/fetish” and “light-and-space.”)

Despite their exposure to new and traditional concepts in color theory and perceptual psychology – and the tutelage provided certain of them by Bauhaus and Bauhaus-related teachers such as Josef Albers (also included in the MoMA show) — the Americans represented in “The Responsive Eye” took a largely non-polemical and even impulsive approach to their artistic production. Where their counterparts elsewhere declared ideological (indeed, socialistically tinged) commitment to neutrality of expression and universal accessibility, American Op artists focused on perception itself and the (continuing) autonomy of both artwork and artist, irrespective of whatever “tricks” art or artist might be playing. Such optical frissons were not created in a spirit of fun and novelty, as the mass media might have it, but in a spirit of sober experiment. In fact, American perceptualists were as discomfited by the “Op Art” label stuck to them as were their detractors in the art press — detractors such as Donald Judd, whose own Minimalist artwork shared with theirs a reliance on rational formation and the objecthood of the artwork. Both Minimalists and Op artists, after all, embodied the contemporaneous dictum of Frank Stella (another “Responsive Eye” participant): “What you see is what you see.” The Minimalists, however, reinterpreted the declaration as “What you see is all you see,” while the Op artists took it as, “What you see is what you think you see.”

Op artists, here and elsewhere, were no less serious, even fervent, about artmaking than were their nonOp peers. But they got engulfed in a craze, at least in the U.S. The Op eruption echoed the Stateside frenzy surrounding the Beatles, who first landed on these shores a year, nearly to the day, before “The Responsive Eye” opened. Like the Fab Four, the Op dozens had been building up a following in the previous couple of years, earning admirers among those who didn’t “know much about art” even while gaining the disdain of other artists and art people. Pop Art had confounded outsiders and insiders alike, but its readily recognizable quotes from the landscape of consumerism put outsiders at ease intellectually and its irony and scale came to appeal to art-worlders. Op Art, by contrast, was grasped quickly by the masses, as it was designed to be — only adding to the consternation of art-world insiders. Interestingly, Op Art, no less than Pop, anticipated and even shaped the cultural landscape of its era. If Pop reflected the consumerist optimism of the 1960s and helped disseminate the ironic, distanced cultural regard to which the Beatniks had had exclusive claim in the previous decade, Op questioned the integrity of objective sight and valorized illusion, contemplation, alienation, and loss of a sense of self — all conditions that a burgeoning youth culture was even then beginning to seek through drugs and music.

(The catalog to “The Responsive Eye” cites the research of at least one participant into the effects of then-legal LSD and mescaline.) Before Op itself disappeared from popular culture it was already recrudescing in Psychedelic Art and rock-and-roll poster (and, by extension, album cover) design, both of which adapted the coloristic and linear effects associated with Op to basically figurative imagery.

Artists identified with the Op Art movement in the United States, as elsewhere, remained committed to the principles that put them under that rubric long after the rubric itself had faded from the pages of

Time, Life, and Vogue. Their sensibilities, oriented towards systematic investigation and the evolution of coherent form, maintained throughout their careers whether or not their later practice diverged from Op Art or even from geometric abstraction in general. Some went back to the exploration of perceptual stimulation after working in other (if related) styles. A few even became more “Op” in certain ways than they had been at the time of Op’s apotheosis. And succeeding generations of artists — notably but not exclusively painters, and notably but not exclusively Americans — have referred to Op mannerisms or even returned to Op practices, interested all over again in what can be done to stimulate the eye beyond the expected, beyond the quotidian, beyond the prosaic. Op Art stays stubbornly fresh, as long as the human eye stays gullible and enchantable.

Los Angeles February 2015

BIBLIOGRAPHY Houston, Joe. Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s, Columbus and London/New York: Columbus Museum of Art and Merrell Publishers, 2007 Seitz, William C. The Responsive Eye, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1965 Weinhart, Martina, and Max Hollein. Op Art. Frankfurt and Cologne: Schirn Kunsthalle and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2007

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OP ART IN THE 60s

Richard Anuszkiewicz EXACT QUANTITY, 1963 Acrylic on canvas, 18” x 31”

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Karl Benjamin #34, 1964 Oil on canvas, 42” x 42”

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Julian Stanczak TRANSLUCENT ORANGE, 1968-2002 Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

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Tadasky C143, 1965 Acrylic on canvas, 47” x 47”

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Leroy Lamis CONSTRUCTION #209, 1972 Plexiglass, 12” x 12” x 12”

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Mon Levinson RECTANGLES I, 1964 Mixed media construction, 22” x 30”, Framed 22.25” x 20.25”

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Francis Hewitt GREY ILLUMINATED DISCS, 1964 Acrylic on canvas on masonite, 24” x 24”

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Lorser Feitelson UNTITLED (OCTOBER 25), 1964 Oil and enamel on canvas, 72” x 60”

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John Goodyear THE LIGHT SOURCE, 1965 Acrylic on plastic with inner lighting, 24” x 24” x 6”

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Francis Celentano ELLIPTICAL KINETIC PAINTING, 1967 Acrylic on masonite with motor, 48” x 48” x 6.5”

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Ernst Benkert UNTITLED (JULY 14), 1967 Ink on paper, 21” x 21”, paper size of 28.5” x 22.5”

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Ernst Benkert UNTITLED (JUNE 30), 1967 Ink on paper, 21” x 21”, paper size of 28.5” x 22.5” Ernst Benkert UNTITLED (JULY 5), 1967 Ink on paper, 21” x 21”, paper size of 28.5” x 22.5”

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Hannes Beckmann THORNY, 1962 Oil on canvas, 16.75” x 16.75”

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Peter Stroud ONE AT THE CENTRE - RED, 1971 Acrylic on canvas, 72” x 72.5”

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Thomas Downing FIZI, ca 1970 Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 30”

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Alexander Liberman UNTITLED, ca 1950 Oil on canvas, 18” x 24”

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Oli Sihvonen 3 ON GREEN (116), 1963 Oil on canvas, 81” x 17”

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Ed Mieczkowski ADELE, 1963 Acrylic on board, 31” x 31”

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ART AFTER THE OP ART CRAZE

Francis Hewitt FRANKLIN COUNTY, 1991 Oil and acrylic on linen, 72” x 72” x 1.5”

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Tadasky R103, 2015 Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

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Alexander Liberman IOTA II, 1961 Oil on canvas, 50” x 30.5”

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Lorser Feitelson ARCHIMAGE II, 1976 Acrylic on canvas board, 30” x 24”

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Richard Anuszkiewicz CROSSROAD REDS, 2000 Enamel on steel, 38” x 38” x .25”

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Thomas Downing FIRST SKY, 1983 Acrylic on canvas, 96” x 48”

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John Goodyear PRESENCE, 2013 Acrylic on canvas with wooden dowels and monofilament, 24” x 30” x 6”

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Francis Celentano LE CIRQUE 10, 2004 Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 84”

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Hannes Beckmann NOCTURNAL SPACE, 1973 Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 30”

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Julian Stanczak TRESPASS IN THE DARK, 2004 Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 84”

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Leroy Lamis UNTITLED, 1982-1992 Digital animation snapshot from PC, 31.25” x 23.25”

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Leroy Lamis UNTITLED, 1982-1992 Digital animation snapshot from PC, 30” x 22”

Karl Benjamin #3, 1990 Oil on canvas, 48” x 60”

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Ed Mieczkowski BLUE GANTRY, 1986 Acrylic and graphite on paper, 44.5” x 32”

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Oli Sihvonen ELEGY (017), 1988 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60” x 68”

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Mon Levinson PRUSSIAN BLUE, GREEN, OCHRE AND GRAY SERIES PART 12 OF 17, 1980 Folded and cut paper, 24” x 31” x 2.5”

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Peter Stroud BLUE ON GRAY INTERLOCK, 1973 Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 78”

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Ernst Benkert UNTITLED (MAY), 1991 Ink on paper, 10” x 22”, paper size 22” x 29.875”

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Ernst Benkert UNTITLED (JUNE), 1991 Ink on paper, 10” x 22”

EXHIBITION CHECKLIST

RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ (1930) Exact Quantity, 1963 Acrylic on canvas 18” x 31”

RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ (1930) Crossroad Reds, 2000 Enamel on steel 38” x 38” x .25”

HANNES BECKMANN (1909-1977) Thorny, 1962 Oil on canvas 16 3/4” x 16 3/4”

HANNES BECKMANN (1909-1977) Nocturnal Space, 1973 Acrylic on canvas 24” x 30”

KARL BENJAMIN (1925-2012) #34, 1964 Oil on canvas 42” x 42”

KARL BENJAMIN (1925-2012) #3, 1990 Oil on canvas 48” x 60”

ERNST BENKERT (1928-2010) UNTITLED (JULY 5), 1967 Ink on paper 22” x 30” UNTITLED (JULY 14), 1967 Ink on paper 22” x 30”

ERNST BENKERT (1928-2010) UNTITLED (JUNE 30), 1967 Ink on paper 22” x 30”

ERNST BENKERT (1928-2010) Untitled May, 1991 Ink on paper 22.25” x 30”

FRANCIS CELENTANO (1928) Elliptical Kinetic Painting, 1967, Acrylic on masonite with motor 48” diameter

ERNST BENKERT (1928-2010) Untitled June, 1991 Ink on paper 22.25” x 30”

FRANCIS CELENTANO (1928) Le Cirque 10, 2004 Acrylic on canvas 60” x 84”

THOMAS DOWNING (1928-1985) Fizi, ca 1970 Acrylic on canvas 30” x 30”

THOMAS DOWNING (1928-1985) First Sky, 1983 Acrylic on canvas 96” x 48”

LORSER FEITELSON (1898-1978) Untitled (October 25), 1964 Oil and enamel on canvas 72” x 60”

LORSER FEITELSON (1898-1978) Archimage II, 1976 Acrylic on canvas board 30” x 24”

JOHN GOODYEAR (1930) The Light Source, 1965 Acrylic on plastic with inner lighting 24” x 24” x 6”

JOHN GOODYEAR (1930) Presence, 2013 Acrylic on canvas with wooden dowels and monofilament 24” x 30” x 6”

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FRANCIS HEWITT (1936-1992) Grey Illuminated Discs, 1964 Acrylic on masonite 24” x 24”

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LEROY LAMIS (1925-2010) Construction #209, 1972 Plexiglass 12” x 12” x 12”

MON LEVINSON (1926-2014) Rectangles I, 1964 Mixed media construction 22” x 30”

ALEXANDER LIBERMAN (1912-1999) Iota II, 1961 Oil on canvas 50” x 30”

FRANCIS HEWITT (1936-1992) Franklin County, 1991 Oil and acrylic on linen 72” x 72”

LEROY LAMIS (1925-2010) Screen print from computer program Digital print 24” x 30” Screen print from computer program Digital print 24” x 30” MON LEVINSON (1926-2014) Prussian Blue, Green, Ochre and Gray Series, 1980s Folded paper in plexi box 24” x 31” 2.5”

ALEXANDER LIBERMAN (1912-1999) Untitled, 1950s Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

ED MIECZKOWSKI (1929) Adele, 1963 Acrylic on board 31” x 31”

ED MIECZKOWSKI (1929) Blue Gantry, 1986 Acrylic and graphite on paper 44.5” x 32”

OLI SIHVONEN (1921-1991) 3 on Green (116), 1963 Oil on canvas 81” x 17”

OLI SIHVONEN (1921-1991) Elegy (017), 1988 Oil and acrylic on canvas 60” x 68”

JULIAN STANCZAK (1928) Translucent Orange, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 36” x 36”

JULIAN STANCZAK (1928) Trespass in the Dark, 2004 Acrylic on canvas 40” x 84”

PETER STROUD (1921) One at the Centre - Red, 1971 Acrylic on canvas 72” x 72.5”

TADASKY (1935) C143, 1965 Acrylic on canvas 47” x 47”

PETER STROUD (1921) Blue on Gray Interlock, 1973 Canvas with a metal frame 60” x 78”

TADASKY (1935) R 103, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 36.5” x 36.5”

ISBN: 978-0-9907011-1-8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Published on the occasion of the exhibition: Post Op: ‘The Repsonsive Eye’ Fifty Years After February 27 – April 12, 2015 Curated by David Eichholtz and Peter Frank David Richard Gallery 544 South Guadalupe Street Santa Fe, NM 87501 P: 505-983-9555 | DavidRichardGallery.com Gallery Staff: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, Managers Published by: David Richard Gallery, LLC, Santa Fe, NM All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or part in digital or printed form of any kind whatsoever without the express written permission from the copyright holder.

Catalogue: © 2015 David Richard Gallery, LLC, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Essay: © 2015 Peter Frank, Los Angeles, CA Art: Richard Anuszkiewicz © Richard Anuszkiewicz. Reproduction permission licensed through VAGA, NY, www.vagarights.com; Hannes Beckmann © Estate of Hannes Beckmann, Courtesy David Hall Fine Art, LLC; Karl Benjamin © Benjamin Artworks, courtesy Louis Stern Fine Arts; Ernst Benkert © Ernst Benkert Estate; Francis Celentano © Francis Celentano; Thomas Downing © Estate of Thomas Downing; Lorser Feitelson © The Feitelson / Lundeberg Arts Foundation, courtesy Louis Stern Fine Arts; John Goodyear © John Goodyear; Francis Hewitt © Francis Hewitt Estate; Leroy Lamis © The Estate of Leroy Lamis; Mon Levinson © Mon Levinson Estate, Courtesy D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc.; Alexander Liberman © The Alexander Liberman Trust; Ed Mieczkowski © Ed Mieczkowski; Oli Sihvonen © The Oli Sihvonen Trust; Julian Stanczak © Julian Stanczak; Peter Stroud © Estate of Peter Stroud; Tadasky © Tadasky (Tadasuke Kuwayama) Photos of art and installations: Greg Zinniel Catalogue Design: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, David Richard Gallery, LLC, Santa Fe, NM We thank all of the artists and estates who enthusiastically participated in this exhibition and generously contributed their artworks.

Moreover, we are so thankful for all of these artists, whose dedication to their artistic endeavors and desire to explore visual perception created some of the most stimulating and enduring works of art that made this presentation possible. We thank all of our colleagues and the galleries who supported this exhibition and agreed to lend artworks, including: Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York; Louis Stern Fine Arts, Los Angeles; D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York; David Hall Fine Art, LLC, Wellesley; and LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe. A very special thanks goes to co-curator, art historian, critic, and writer Peter Frank. Peter’s deep knowledge of Op Art and the artists in this exhibition and his thoughtful essay bring new insights to this important area of art. Our spirited conversations and countless edits, combined with Peter seeing first hand The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in February, 1965, made this not only a great exhibition that focuses on the passion and careers of these artists, but a richly rewarding experience for me (David Eichholtz) as an art historian, curator and gallerist.

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

544 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 | p (505) 983-9555 www.DavidRichardGallery.com | info@DavidRichardGallery.com